Cameroon

Redwolf, I think you'll find that if you watch it driving you'll see that it's trying to get to each waypoint even though it deletes the waypoint that it was heading to as it gets near. Basically the shown waypoints are visually inconsistent as a unit (veh or inf) approaches a waypoint. From watching the AI (vehicle or infantry) move, there doesn't appear to be any interpolation from one waypoint to the next; they just go, turn, go again. Ideally, barring an obstacle in the way, they would calculate an arc through the waypoint, slowing down only as necessary to remain on that arc.

Other Means, yeah it's a bug that they know of (was in CMx1 as well) and want to fix. I'm guessing it's somewhere down the list right now tho

But Elmar, didn't you know that reactionary is in these days?

yes

Yeah, I'm waiting to continue the campaign for the patch that fixes troops/vehicles going through breaches. And LOS/LOF. The LOS/LOF is the only one that's really holding me back, but the problems with going through breaches is pretty annoying too. [Edit] To actually be on topic; artillery, RPGs, ATGMs and tank shells all definitely leave holes in the ground (check them zoomed in), but they aren't giant craters. VBIEDs... those leave some monster craters.

By the way, the download works but that is definitely one ad-filled page, heh. Not easy to find the link amongst everything else, which I suppose is what they've tried to do.

I'll give it a try. Like the other scenario I'm trying out it, though, I won't be able to play it until tomorrow probably. Doesn't the office know I have better things to be doing?

You definitely can do so - in the editor you can designate terrain tiles as "Preserve". Mark them so neither side knows where they are, and there you have it, buildings that you don't know you're not allowed to destroy. Unfortunately you can't designate their destruction as negative points and their preservation as 0 points (which is what the scenario here would be IRL, basically).

CMSF is OpenGL, I don't imagine a new version of DirectX fixing anything unless there's some weird interactions going on

I'd also like to try that scenario out - e-mails in my profile

Sorry for hijacking your thread BigDork.

The AI has always been in the scenario designer's hands - in CMx1 titles you had to place the flags. Without them, or if they were laid out poorly, the computer opponent would definitely not work right. The problem here is that it seems easier to miss a step or two as the scenario designer. It would be nice if the editor could do a quick sanity check for those simple things when you saved. Not that there isn't room for improvement in the AI, but it seems to work pretty well in the campaign. That makes me believe there's a bug that breaks the AI in QBs. I think a lot of what we're seeing can be summed up like this: 1. QB maps that are missing some critical parts of their AI plans 2. A bug in the QB unit setup that won't put units inside houses 3. A need for TacAI "balancing" (for example, units too unwilling to fire their larger ordnance like ATGs or RPGs) 4. Some LOS/LOF bugs (it's acknowledged that they exist, probably fixed after 1.02). These bugs cause some big problems - last night troops were getting seen and shot through a hill (QB Attack Forest). 5. Some unreasonable "purchases" in QBs (how can it buy only a section of MGs for the Syrian side sometimes?) I think once those are ironed out, the play will change and improve dramatically. People comparing the AI in CMSF unfavorably to that in CMBO must be forgetting a lot of the horrid things it would do before. Like if it were attacking and there was a covered route of trees, that is the only place the AI would attack from. If I had artillery, as soon as I caught site of one unit there I could demolish its force. Last night on the map "QB Assault Forest" (I did tweak the AI plans for both attacker and defender) the AI would often come from two directions at once and pop out from behind trees when I wasn't expecting it. To me that's a large improvement. I also saw some of the similar weaknesses that showed up in CMx1 where, for instance, the computer would send troops almost in a human wave approach where all the units would go the same way. I'm not against improving the AI if and where it can be improved, I just think that a lot of what we're seeing (especially in QBs) is a matter of bugs that need squashed rather than specific problems with the AI.

I took a look at QB City Attack (which is the map I think you were talking about/using BigDork) and the AI plan Red 1 has a setup zone and is set to "Use Frequently" however the Red 2 plan is also set to "Used Frequently" but doesn't have any setup zone. Sounds like the plan selected each of those times was Red 2, so the troops were stuck where they started. BF needs to review the AI plans for all the QB maps to make sure that the AI plans are correct.

Hi Kieme, I don't think it confirms anything about the AI's capability. The AI in scenarios does fine, but there's something not right going on in QBs. BigDork, can you check the map that you played in the editor (page didn't load so I couldn't check which map it was)? I believe you'll find the same reason that the AI didn't even setup its units that I found in the "QB Village Attack2". Namely that at least some, if not all, of the QBs do not have the setup zone painted for the AI to deploy in. There's two steps to making it so that the AI will set up its units. The first step is the normal map design of painting a Setup area or areas. The second step, which seems to have been missed, is in the AI Plan setup. The very first step for each AI plan is "Setup" and it also has to be painted onto the map or else the AI won't be able to deploy its forces and they'll just sit where they started, especailly if the AI just has a "inflict causalities" objective. If it has a terrain objective, it will send units to capture them but obviously has to do so after the setup period. The manual makes mention of this, but maybe it was a last minute change? In any case, the setup/deployment issue should be easily fixed just by painting the setup zones so that the AI can deploy. The not firing, however, seems like a bug to me. I played a QB on the defense, but neither my troops nor the AI's would fire. Finally the computer did fire, and then everyone started firing but only small arms (at a Stryker ATGM). I don't know what the problem is, but it seems like the TacAI has a bug with QBs. I'm hopeful that it's something fixed in 1.02 since the AI does work in the scenarios but we'll see this week (in theory).

Knocked out vs destroyed - at least in earlier CM games - was the difference between salvageable and not. Practically it was the same thing, unless you were playing in an Operation, in which case a knocked out vehicle MIGHT come back. Since CMx2 doesn't have Operations like those in CMx1 I don't see them being different right now. Perhaps it matters for the future (or maybe in campaigns?)

I'm looking forward to the QB problems getting ironed out. QBs were my main play style in the CMx1 titles and I expect that they will be in CMSF, too. And yes, I can live without random maps

Yeah, there are definitely some QB issues. At least one I realized/discovered has to do with the AI plans not having the setup zone painted to actually be an AI setup area. The Setup is available and a human can setup there, but the AI didn't have the area marked as a zone in which it can set up so it's troops were left where they spawn. And since the AI was only given an enemy casualties objective, they sat there waiting in one big lump. You can see what I mean on the QB Village Attack2 quick battle file. One I'm just discovering now has to do with the units that are at least sometimes given to the Syrian player (AI or human). I mean, I just tried a QB and got a section of mortars as my only units. Uhm. Yeah. The one right before it gave me a section of MGs as the only units.

[Edit] Ok, originally I said that the change should have made the same difference but didn't. Now, however, I can't get the same results to duplicate with ANY set of settings. I mean, I can get ~26 FPS but I'm getting it with any combination of settings, which doesn't correspond with any of my gameplay earlier today. Pinning down frame rate improvement tweaks for CMSF is definitely more art than science :-p [ August 04, 2007, 07:47 AM: Message edited by: Cameroon ]

Sadly you're correct about the 8600 It's only real benefit is DX10 support.

Wow, big difference. Thanks for that. Machine: C2D @ 2.13 Ghz NVidia 7950GT 512 MB 2 Gigs of RAM Here's my progression that's getting ~28 FPS on the airport mission in the campaign. CPU Affinity: CPU 1 Threaded Optimization: Off CM Shock Force Priority (in the Task Manager): Normal (down from High) Shadows Off (in game, Alt-W) That's with 2x AA and 2x AF turned on and Improved detail in game. With Shadows on, it drops to ~22 FPS. With FRAPS off, it goes up but I can't tell by how much since FRAPS is off

I'm guessing that the problem is that the "Barracks" objective is literally the one barracks building that has the word "Barracks" above it. If you don't have a unit in _that_ building, I bet you don't get credit for it. Unfortunately, since it's baked into a campaign there's no way (for us) to extend the objective area to encompass the whole barracks (which would let you occupy any part of the barracks). I think they need to provide an enhancement to the territory objectives that allows the scenario developer to say "occupy this objective and no enemy forces within YYYY meters". With YYY being anything 0 to some reasonable upper limit. If that capability is there, I've totally missed it.

Hi rogue, yeah it's something that's on the list as far as I know. It's definitely been mentioned to the developers, and directly (rune's got a small demo map and save games from me). Here's hoping that's fixed in 1.02

Sgt, I'm pretty sure that's related to t he bug where infantry won't move through holes that are blown in a wall by demo charges or MGS, etc. I have a good feeling that this is something making it into 1.02, but we'll have to wait and see what the official word is.

Bump, with another picture. This time I went into the editor and tweaked the map. The default map has setup zones for the Red AI but NO terrain objectives. Eh? I thought perhaps that is why the AI units were all clustered over on the side and was hopeful it was just shoddy QB maps (unfortunate, but easily fixed). However, even after making sure that both forces have objectives the AI did not set up its forces at all. I finally got them to try to hold onto some objectives by giving them Assault orders in the plan, but that should NOT be necessary in a defensive QB. So, three questions (bugs?): 1) Why is the AI not performing any setup at all 2) Why is it "just sitting there"? You can see that there's an anti-tank unit there, but it hasn't bothered to fire at me. In the editor, the defending force is "Active". 3) Why are there so many fewer troops than in the first picture? Back in my setup zone I've got infantry and mech transport, but there's like a platoon defending - that doesn't seem right? At first I'd thought there must be some sort of circumstance to what Kieme was seeing that explained it, but obviously not. Here's to hoping that this thread is a duplicate and that somewhere else it's already been noted, confirmed and a fix being worked on.

What about the optics though? Not that I'm saying there isn't a problem, just considering the possibilities